Dare I say it? I despise A Prayer for Owen Meany. I started reading Irving's book expecting that I would be quite impressed -- every review that I'd heard for it was positive. Even the cover was alluring.

Now, the first hundred words or so of the book are not without value. But by the time I got even halfway through the first chapter, I felt like I wanted to stop reading. John Irving begins a dangerous precedent by narrating the book from Toronto (through the transparent Johnny Wheelwright). Safely outside the United States, Irving manages to rail against Ronald Reagan every ten pages, practically seething with righteous rage. He portrays the sins of Reagan against the sins of Vietnam, preaching through his entirely uninteresting character. The first one or two such rants are tolerable; when they become more frequent, they become entirely unbearable.

Nor does Irving's style of writing become more tolerable as the book goes on. Every other paragraph ends with a question mark to convey some point of foreshadowing. Overall, Irving's work feels like a bad horror movie, or a Harlequin romance. "Little did I know then that Owen would become a martyr." Doesn't sound so bad? Read it every few sentences. This becomes very painful. It doesn't help that the book is very, very long and contains hundreds and hundreds of incidents of poor storytelling.

Okay. On to the symbolism.

John Irving uses the book to illustrate an internal crisis of faith, but the book turns out to be more wishful thinking than anything else. Owen Meany is the personification of what Irving seems to have looked for -- a prophet who carries out a miracle. Thusly, Owen is an object of absolute faith, perhaps the only cause of absolute faith. The mental process expounded upon in the book appears to be a desire for complete affirmation of one's belief. However, both the best and worst Christians of the book are stumbling in the dark, the same as everybody else. Even after witnessing the fulfillment of Owen's prophecies, John doubts.

The themes are not my problem with the book, although I frankly find Irving's religious crisis remarkably uninteresting. My problem is that Irving came up with what is very nearly an excellent plot and spoiled it with poor writing. That's my opinion, anyway. I'm sticking to it.


I have one other problem with Irving's storytelling, but saying it here would ruin the ending for many people. (Not that he doesn't do it.) /msg me and I'll tell you, if you've read the book.